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Poster (c) New Line Films
If Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star was released in five years or so, you can bet that Haley Joel Osment would have had a cameo, along with other child stars. He begun by acting in such films as Forrest Gump and peaked in 1999 starring in The Sixth Sense. After his Oscar nomination (robbed by Michael Caine, who stars along with Osment here in Secondhand Lions) he started to go downhill, from Pay it Forward and then hitting bottom by voicing the main character in The Country Bears and doing voices in movies that should have gone direct-to-video like The Jungle Book 2. And here he is in Secondhand Lions, doing whatever it takes to scrounge whatever he has left of his dignity and play it straight.
I was hesitant to into Secondhand Lions, due to the less-than-positive reviews it had been getting, and all of the mud that had been flung at Osment’s acting. However, I sucked it up and bought a ticket for it. What I got was low on plot and high on sap, with some good laughs and bad editing thrown into the mix. What you could consider plot goes like this: Walter (Osment) is a boy of young teens (you can tell by the way his voice cracks more than Peter Brady in that episode of The Brady Bunch) dropped off at his eccentric uncles’ house by his mother (Kyra Sedgwick). Walter is a shy, soft-spoken kid who now lives with his two over-the-top great-uncles Hub (Robert Duvall) and Garth (Caine), whose idea of a good time is to shoot at traveling salesmen. What follows is a seemingly endless coming-of-age story.
Secondhand Lions really doesn’t know what it wants to be. At times that can benefit a movie, but here it makes the movie too uneven. There could be an important, meaningful scene, followed by mayhem and would-be hilarity. We were just getting over the force-fed sap from the previous scene, and now we are supposed to be enticed into the fun of the next. As I was walking out of the movie, I heard a theater employee say, “That could so not happen.” While it’s not supposed to, I just found the whole movie a little over-the-top.
Speaking of over-the-top, that’s exactly what Caine and Duvall are, and they seem to enjoy it. They are the best part of the movie, plain and simple. They, unlike Osment, seem to understand that this is not a very serious movie, and just ham it up as much as they can. It makes a great contrast to Osment, who almost plays as a fish out of water. Osment wants to continue to be a “serious” actor, so he tries to be as serious and un-silly as he can be, which takes away some of the movie. Although he isn’t wooden, as other people say, he isn’t up to par with Caine and Duvall’s wonderful performances.
On the other side of the spectrum, what comedy was there (just not enough to be considered a “comedy”; it was more of a “light-hearted drama) was very funny. Mind you, it isn’t A Mighty Wind funny, but for what it was it was quite humorous. If you want to go see Secondhand Lions, see it for the great performances by Duvall and Caine.
Rated PG for thematic material, language and action violence.
Review Date: September 21, 2003